


All the memories (they’re haunted)

by Serendipity (jenjaemrens)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Brotherly Love, M/M, Post-Break Up, Protective Siblings, Sad Ending, SakuAtsu, author has an obsession with miya twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:54:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29222766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenjaemrens/pseuds/Serendipity
Summary: " Sakusa Kiyoomi stands awkwardly in front of the door, looking like he’s ready to run out should Osamu say anything.Osamu wants him to. In fact he kind of wants to throw the guy out himself.But there are still 15 minutes left, and this is a customer. "
Relationships: Miya Atsumu & Miya Osamu, Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 115





	All the memories (they’re haunted)

**Author's Note:**

> Aight so a better a/n lol  
> Shoutout to Em for betaing this for and suggesting the title. At this point, she is what keeps me sane when it comes to skts even tho she encourages my insanity.  
> I have had this on my mind since?? sometimes last year and I hope you all like it!  
> Kudos and comments are appreciated! Thanks!

Osamu glances at the clock as the last of his employees file out of the shop. 

7.43 pm.

Once upon a time, Miya Osamu would have been put off by the fact that his shop was empty despite the fact that it was still 20 minutes before closing time. Well, Miya Osamu is now older (‘stop acting like you’re 50 years old, Samu. You’re literally 25’) and wiser. He has come to appreciate the fact that there are slow nights that allow him to let his staff leave early, while he stays back to clean and close.

Osamu loves his job. He loves talking to the customers, the feeling of rice in his hand, and the smiles on the faces of those who take a bite of his food. There is nothing he can love more than this.

Yet – admittedly – nights like these are his favourite. He can probably close the shop early and head on over to his brother’s place to help him. 

Just as Osamu picks up his phone, the door to his shop slides open.

He refrains the urge to groan and locks his phone, but not before he gets to see the time again.

7.45 pm.

He looks up, a polite smile and the beginning of a greeting already on his lips, both of which promptly die down when he sees who it is who’s just walked in.

Sakusa Kiyoomi stands awkwardly in front of the door, looking like he’s ready to run out should Osamu say anything.

Osamu wants him to. In fact he kind of wants to throw the guy out himself.

But there are still 15 minutes left, and this is a customer.

Osamu bows slightly. “Welcome to Onigiri Miya.”

Sakusa makes his way towards the empty seats while Osamu walks back into the kitchen to bring out the ingredients he needs. Usually, he’d stay in the kitchen and prepare the onigiri there with two of his handpicked cooks – he’d actually feel more comfortable making them in the kitchen right now, with a wall to safely divide them, but he knows that Sakusa isn’t here just for the onigiri.

He carries out the tray of rice, salt water, nori and umeboshi and sets them all down on the counter. 

Sakusa straightens in his seat when he sees Osamu reappear .

“I want three umeboshi—”

“I know your order,” Osamu cuts in, tapping the salt water onto his hand.

“And three tuna onigiris.”

Osamu stops with a hand hovering over the rice. He looks up at Sakusa, who stares at him as though challenging him to refuse the order. 

He ignores it and goes back to picking up the rice. 

His grandmother had been the one to teach him how to make onigiris. His mother had been too busy to look after her sons, what with her long work hours. Osamu still remembers the slow, careful steps his grandmother showed him in order to make the perfect and best onigiri.

‘Making the perfect onigiri is an art,’ she had told him. ‘And do you know how we can tell if it’s the perfect onigiri?’

‘How?’ he had asked.

‘When we see their smile.’

Osamu has trained himself over the years to remake it over and over again, only faster. You don’t have the luxury of leisurely slowness when you have ten customers waiting in line with ten different orders. The helpful side effect of this speed he’s picked up: he knows he can finish Sakusa’s order in five minutes and have him out by the next.

He glances at the clock again.

7.47 pm. 

Five minutes since Sakusa entered Osamu’s shop. Somehow, it feels like it’s been hours.

He puts the umeboshi in the centre of the well and starts to shape the onigiri in his hand. As he lays down the shaped onigiri onto a stripe of nori, Sakusa speaks.

“How is… Atsumu?”

Osamu doesn’t even look at him as he wraps the nori around the rice and then sets it aside with a little more force than necessary. “You don’t get to ask that,” he snaps. “You are the  _ last _ person who gets to ask me how my brother is.”

He doesn’t need to look at Sakusa to know that he probably flinched. 

He knows why Sakusa’s here. He knows what he wants to ask about. His order only solidified Osamu’s suspicion and now he’s finally voiced it.

Osamu grew up listening to other people call his brother was callous and cruel. Atsumu’s not one to mince his words, nor has he ever cared for how that might affect other people’s feelings. Throughout their childhood it made people hate him – not that Atsumu particularly cared about what other people thought of him. Atsumu was a person like that. He was selfish and conceited. He thought harsh words were best. He thought mocking someone was okay.

His brother has always been selfish, only truly caring about two things.

Most people would assume it was just the one: volleyball.

But Osamu knows otherwise. Atsumu cares for volleyball, but he also cares for his family. His family extends beyond their mothers, grandmother and Osamu. To Atsumu, family is also the Inarizaki team. Family is the people who see Atsumu for who he is and never shun him for it.

For a long time, Osamu thought that Atsumu would always remain like this. Selfish and cruel,apologizing to no one. Either you love him for who he is or you don’t. Atsumu doesn’t want to pretend to be someone he isn’t in order for others to love him. He’s always wanted the kind of love that doesn’t seek to sweep away his flaws.

Osamu used to think that was ridiculous. A love like that, he told Atsumu matter-of-factly, only existed in fairy tales and novels. His brother was asking for the impossible.

Until Sakusa Kiyoomi walked into his life at the age of 15.

Selfish. His brother is and always has been selfish about everything in his life. Sakusa Kiyoomi was the one exception.

For the first time, Atsumu hadn’t demanded the absolute most from someone in his life. He loved and gave to Kiyoomi unconditionally.

It was baffling to see the change in Atsumu due to Sakusa.

He had seen his brother smile and laugh. He heard his brother’s voice change when he spoke to Sakusa. He saw the happiness, because for the very first time, Atsumu was loved by someone not only accepted who he was, but actually mirrored him in strange and undefinable ways.

Well, but hadn’t Osamu told Atsumu that love like that only existed in fairy tales.

He had seen his brother smile because of Sakusa Kiyoomi. And he saw his brother hurt at the hand of the same boy.

He heard Atsumu shouting down the phone, cold tinny retorts just barely audible through the speaker. He saw his brother’s bloodshot eyes across the table the next morning and many mornings after. Atsumu never spoke of their fights. There was no point to bringing them up, because they would simply get back together once their fights were over. Then they would fight again. Then break up.

People say distance makes the heart grow fonder, but in their case it was the complete opposite. Distance only seemed to make them uglier. There were more fights than smiles for them. Fights that followed them from high school to college. 

Perhaps they had thought that playing for the same team would make things better. Perhaps they thought the fights would stop once they were in the same city and, possibly, lived together. They were mistaken. 

Distance had nothing to do with their fights. It was them. 

It was a never-ending cycle of the both of them constantly hurting one another, but being too stubborn to let go of something they wanted to believe was love.

Osamu had seen love like this before. He saw it fester. He saw it hurt and almost kill someone he cared for.

At no point did Osamu ever really harbor any sympathy for Sakusa Kiyoomi’s feelings. Not when he was the one who kept on hurting his brother over and over again.

Perhaps Osamu was being biased. He knew his brother was no saint; he also knew his brother was horrible and harsh. There were probably countless times when Atsumu’s words had wounded Sakusa just as deeply as the reverse. 

And yet Osamu still couldn’t care less. Maybe that meant that at the end of the day he, too, was just as horrible a person as Atsumu. He never denied that. Like his brother, Osamu didn’t care for anyone who wasn’t family – and that family was sharply defined. His mothers, his grandmother, his brother and Inarizaki.

In the 10 years he’s known Sakusa Kiyoomi, Osamu has never once considered him family.

He doesn’t think he ever will. Not when he’s spent countless nights listening to his brother sob into his pillow while Osamu lay in the bunk below, helpless because he didn’t know how to make Atsumu happy again.

No. He’ll never be  _ family _ : Osamu will loathe Sakusa Kiyoomi for being the one who broke Miya Atsumu over and over and over again. 

Osamu jerks out of his thoughts when Sakusa clears his throat. Ah. He’s been shaping the second onigiri for far too long.

Murmuring an apology, he quickly puts it down on the second sheet of nori and starts to wrap it around. 

Sakusa says nothing as Osamu places the second completed onigiri on the plate. 

Osamu glances at the clock again.

7.52 pm.

Less than ten minutes to go and he has one more left.

“Miya-san—”

“I know what you’re going to ask,” Osamu says, not giving him a chance to finish. “There’s no point. Why don’t you just let it go?”

“Because… I can’t. I know I was wrong… or we both were, but I just…”

Osamu sighs. “You don’t get it. Do you?”

He looks at Sakusa, who seems bemused. He supposes that Sakusa doesn’t understand. His brother doesn’t either. Perhaps this makes sense, because if either of them ever comprehended how horrible they were for each other, then maybe they would have let go of each other years ago.

Love, they say, makes you blind.

Osamu thinks that love makes you a fool. 

“You really still don’t see how god-awful you two were for each other, do you?” Osamu asks, fighting the bizarre urge to chuckle. 

Sakusa recoils, clenching his fists tightly.

Osamu shrugs and looks down again. He keeps speaking as he prepares to make the last onigiri, because it’s been years. Because someone needs to tell them the truth.

“You two are horrible for each other. You bring out the worst in each other. My brother’s always been kind of shitty in a lot of ways, but never as bad as when he’s with you.”

He rubs the salt water over his hand again.

“And yeah, he’s made loads of mistakes in his life. His hair back in high school? God, I fucking warned him, ya know? It looked so bad. Like piss.” Osamu shakes his head, snorting as he remembers how Atsumu looked back then.

He takes a deep breath, pausing only for a second before he picks up another plum.

“But without a doubt,  _ you _ are the worst mistake he ever made, Sakusa. The mistake my brother kept on making over and over again. No matter how badly you hurt him, he kept on going back to you every time. Don’t you think it’s time you both stopped this ridiculous thing?”

“I….”

“I’m saying this for you too. Love is supposed to make you happy. Tsumu and you had more angry and terrible days than happy days. Let go of that.”

“I love him,” Sakusa whispers. “I really love him.”

That makes him laugh. Love. How... ridiculous for people to use that as an excuse. Does loving someone mean that it’s okay to constantly hurt them and yourself? If you love someone and you see they aren’t happy, then why not let them go?

Love, it seems, is a curse handed down to all the Miyas.

“I’m sure you do. I never said you didn’t. Atsumu loves you too, ya know? I don’t think he ever loved someone the way he loved you. It’s funny when you think about it, right? You love someone so much but you can’t stop yourself from hurting them over and over again.”

He thinks of his mother and father. He remembers the screaming and shouting. He remembers creeping out of his room with Atsumu after the screaming stops only to freeze as they were about to enter the living room because they could hear their mother’s cries. He remembers Atsumu quickly tugging him back to their room and hugging him tightly.

He remembers Atsumu protecting him every time their parents had a fight.

“But you see, love isn’t enough. I know you love him. My brother is hard to love, but once you love him, I think it’s impossible to stop. Thing is – your love is poison. It’s killing you both and you two are just stubborn. Too stubborn to accept the fact that this love is doing nothing but making you both miserable.”

Finally, when the onigiri is done shaping, you put it down on the nori and wrap it around. It can be done in under five minutes.

“I just…”

“If you love him, then let him go.” Osamu starts packing his order. “Besides, it’s too late.”

“What?”

He thinks back to how he had visited Atsumu a while ago to see him sitting on the couch and stare at his phone. When Osamu asked, Atsumu had told him it was an offer to play in Italy. He remembers the arguments they had because Atsumu didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay here in Osaka, he said. The part he didn’t say, the part Osamu knew anyway, was that it was the thought of leaving Sakusa that was holding him back. 

Osamu is not going to let someone like Sakusa Kiyoomi stop his brother from reaching the stage he deserves. Atsumu’s worthy ofbetter than that.

“He’s leaving for Italy. He got an offer to play there, and it already took ages to convince him to take it. Do him a favor and stop this now.”

With the final onigiri inside the bag, Osamu finally looks at Sakusa. It’s the first time that he’s seen such an expression on that face: utter devastation.

“This is his chance to be truly happy. Love... you’ll fall in love again, Sakusa. So will he. That’s human nature. We get hurt but we get up and we live. We experience happiness again. So will you. Trust me, I know.”

He has seen it. He has seen his mother be happy again. He has seen his mother laugh and love again, this time loving someone who makes her happy rather than sad. His mom was the best thing to happen to his mother.

“So – even though this sounds like some low budget movie dialogue – I am begging you. Let him  _ go _ . I can’t see him hurt anymore.”

And Osamu puts the paper bag on top of the counter, waiting for Sakusa to pick it up and leave.

“Three umeboshi onigiri ready to go.”

Then, utterly unexpectedly, Sakusa smiles.

Osamu doesn’t think he’s ever seen a smile like this. One that looks so defeated, so pained. For a second, just a second, he wants to reach out and pat Sakusa on his shoulder. Offer him some tiny comfort. If only because this love seems so horrible.

Love seems cruel.

Sakusa stands up and reaches out to put the bill on the counter. He picks up the bag and heads towards the door. When he opens the door, he stops in front of it for a second, and Osamu wonders for a moment whether he’s going to look back and ask again. Maybe he’ll ask if he can talk to Atsumu. Maybe he’ll ask if it’s okay to just call him.

But then Sakusa steps out, letting the door close door behind him. Empty silence fills the restaurant.

Osamu’s phone buzzes.

It’s 8 p.m.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/sakuatsucafe)


End file.
